Mysteries

Mum and Dad went to Mr. Tillotson’s funeral at Egley Cemetery at one today, and came home at four in understandably morbid frame of mind. Mum said the funeral service had made her think about death, a subject she says she’s “thought deeply about more than most who are fifty.” This she attributes to the death of her sister Mary in 1958 when Mum was twenty four. She was sceptical about the “Joseph-Tillotson-is-now-in-heaven-having-a-wonderful-time” approach of the officiating priest:

“I think you only live after death in the minds of others” . . .

We human beings will always find it difficult to accept the physical reality of death. Joseph lived, and now he doesn’t: his body was incinerated in the Crematorium down in Egley Cemetery, ten minutes walk from his home of fifty years. This passing of people into memory fascinates and appalls me. My journal, my obsession with improving life and searching for meaning, all spring from this passage.

When Dad came home from work last night he gave me three books, two by Colin Wilson (The Occult and its sequel, Mysteries) and a paperback copy of The Golden Bough. The Wilson books look to be interesting. I hadn’t the heart to tell Dad I’d already bought a copy of The Golden Bough.